Sunday, April 02, 2006

New gadget....

I mentioned in yesterday's post that we got a new kitchen gadget. I have been using a scale for measuring the weight of ingredients for a few years now. This makes cooking/baking much faster for prep and I get more consistant results. The old one finally gave out and we went on the search for a new one. I would have bought the same one we had before as it worked well, but I found one that had a few features that sold it to us.

We ended up choosing the MyWeighKD-7000. This scale is very accurate and can read in 1 gram increments. You can disable the auto-off feature so it does not shut down when you are in the middle of doing something. I hated that about my old scale. I have grown to love the "hold" feature too - I often have something sitting on the scale that obscures the display, so you can press this button and it will hold the display with the weight when you remove the item. The backlight feature works well and I since this one has an AC adapter, I don't have to worry about them darn batteries anymore! It can also weigh up to 15.4 pounds (I don't think I would ever need this much, but it is nice to have!)

The only thing that bugged me about this scale is the "splash guard." It flips up, instead of down, so if your not careful it will mess up the weight as it touches the plate on top. You can easily remove it so it is not a problem, but it would have been a better idea to have it flip down.

Tonight's DVD from Netflix will be Doom starring The Rock. I played the PC game when I was younger, so we have been interested to see how they turned it into a movie. Many more new recipes to try out this week, so keep checkin' back so see what comes from our kitchen next!

My old scale recently gave up the ghost, too. I went to make some pizza dough a few weeks ago, but the recipe was all in weights. I tried to guesstimate the measurements, but the unfortunate dough came out like a brick.

I just ordered this very scale (per the wise counsel of the sainted Rose Levy Beranbaum on her baking blog) and CAN'T WAIT for it to arrive. My last scale was crummy and expensive-- not a good combination, to my mind. The LED display lost several of its bars after a month of light use (it's hard to interpret results that read "L7P"). NOW, to have a highly accurate scale with excellent features for under $65 including shipping... well, such happiness.

And, Jamie, there is no accurate conversion possible from cups to weight; a scale is useful when a recipe lists ingredient amounts in cups OR weight; it also makes using a European recipe possible.

Mebeth - They have a large selection - check them out! Most of them are really not all that big!

s'kat - I couldn't live without my scale now - which can be bad!

Jamie - I have written down most everything I use on a normal basis (flour/sugar or whatever) when I make the recipe and note the weight. For example, most recipes I use 125 grams for 1 cup all-purpose flour. Unless a recipe specfically calls for the "dip and sweep" method which weighs more. Did that make sense?

J Bo - It has a VERY attractive price when you look at the other scales on the market that don't have near the features that this one does!